Category Archives: Photographs

Pogue Canyon in the background.

Echinopsis

from Garden Journal<May Flowers 2013

We weaned the calves above from Section 17 in the Greasy Creek watershed yesterday. We will haul them down the hill this morning after we preg-check our second-calf heifers, this year’s Wagyu X mothers. We will haul the bred cows up the hill, calves down.

Our thoughts about fenceline weaning have changed somewhat in the past couple of years. With the stress on both cow and calf our primary consideration, we’ve noticed that both cow and calf become more frustrated and fret more with just a fence between them. Completely separated from one another, they seem to get over the process in about four or five days, as opposed to a week. So we’re tweaking our program accordingly. The sooner we can get them down the hill where we can control the dust with sprinklers, the sooner we can reduce potential respiratory and eye problems.

The calves look 50-100 lbs. lighter this year, but we’re also weaning two or three weeks earlier than normal due to the dry spring.

While putting out salt and mineral, I interrupted some Turkey Vultures and a bear cub, before the latter retreated to his own tree.

It’s been a long week thus far, but with cooler temperatures: yesterday’s high of 95° and 58° this morning at 4:00 a.m. as we prepare to ship our Wagyu X calves to Snake River Farms this morning. We shipped another load of cull cows to town yesterday as well as eleven grass fed steers to Yosemite Valley Beef in Merced. In the mix we we are weaning a little bunch of calves that have just now begun bawling a mile and half up the road. At the welcome end of yesterday, I looked up to see this Egret, that has been staying out of little camera range, at the end of the lane. I noticed him earlier while watering the corrals to keep the dust down for today, wondering what the sudden attraction was.

Also while waiting for the truck driver for the grass fed steers to call, one of the Roadrunners was just outside the door, surveying bird nests in the eaves.

The grass fed steers and I wait to load while the driver finds his way.

I’m not sure how many Roadrunners we have around the house at the moment, but at least two nesting pairs and two juveniles that were hatched this year. They’re harder to count than cattle, one the run, often in different directions. The one above is taking what appears to be a gopher to a nest in the rocks and Live Oaks above my office window. Earlier this morning, it was a snail. In their beaks, they will beat their quarry senseless, side to side on the ground, until dead. Roadrunners don’t appear to use the same nest twice, and now that I know I have one close by, I’ll keep the camera ready.